•61 


THE 
UNDERS 

OF 

NCE 

© 

RVIN  S.  COB 


UC-NRLF 


SB    E3b    310 


/ 


C 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 


BY   IRVIN   S.  COBB 


FICTION 

THOSE  TIMES  AND  THESE 

LOCAL  COLOR 

OLD  JUDGE  PRIEST 

FIBBLE,  D.D. 

BACK  HOME 

THE  ESCAPE  OF  MR.  TRIMM 

WIT  AND  HUMOR 

"SPEAKING  OF  OPERATIONS — 
EUROPE  REVISED 
ROUGHING  IT  DE  LUXE 
COBB'S  BILL  OF  FARE 
COBB'S  ANATOMY 

MISCELLANY 

THE  THUNDERS  OF  SILENCE 
"SPEAKING  OF  PRUSSIANS — 
PATHS  OF  GLORY 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


THE    AMERICAN    PEOPLE    ARK    A     MIGHTY    PATIENT    LOT. 


The  Thunders 
of  Silence 

By 

Irvin  S.  Cobb 

Author  of  "Paths  of  Glory,"  "Speaking 
of  Prussians ,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


New  York 
George  H.  Doran  Company 


COPYRIGHT,  1918, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  American  people  are  a  mighty  patient 
lot Frontispiece 


PAGE 


The  lone  wolf  wasn't  a  lone  wolf  any  longer. 
He  had  a  pack  to  rally  about  him    .       .16 

That's  the  thing  he  feeds  on — Vanity         .     32 

He  may  or  may  not  keep  faith  but  you 
can  bet  he  always  keeps  a  scrap-book     .     48 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 


SOME  people  said  Congressman  Mal 
lard  had  gone  mad.  These  were  his 
friends,  striving  out  of  the  goodness  of  their 
hearts  to  put  the  best  face  on  what  at  best 
was  a  lamentable  situation.  Some  said  he 
was  a  traitor  to  his  country.  These  were 
his  enemies,  personal,  political  and  journal 
istic.  Some  called  him  a  patriot  who  put 
humanity  above  nationality,  a  new  John  the 
Baptist  come  out  of  the  wilderness  to  preach 
a  sobering  doctrine  of  world-peace  to  a 
world  made  drunk  on  war.  And  these  were 
his  followers.  Of  the  first — his  friends — 
there  were  not  many  left.  Of  the  second 
group  there  were  millions  that  multiplied 
themselves.  Of  the  third  there  had  been  at 
the  outset  but  a  timorous  and  furtive  few, 
and  they  mostly  men  and  women  who  spoke 
English,  if  they  spoke  it  at  all,  with  the 
halting  speech  and  the  twisted  idiom  that 
[9] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

;^beUajrjed  their  foreign  birth;  being  persons 
Who' found. it  entirely  consistent  to  applaud 
the  preachment  of  planetic  disarmament  out 
of  one  side  of  their  mouths,  and  out  of  the 
other  side  of  their  mouths  to  pray  for  the 
success  at  arms  of  the  War  Lord  whose  hand 
had  shoved  the  universe  over  the  rim  of  the 
chasm.  But  each  passing  day  now  saw  them 
increasing  in  number  and  in  audacity.  Tak 
ing  courage  to  themselves  from  the  courage 
of  their  apostle,  these,  his  disciples,  were  be 
ginning  to  shout  from  the  housetops  what 
once  they  had  only  dared  whisper  beneath 
the  eaves.  Disloyalty  no  longer  smouldered ; 
it  was  blazing  up.  It  crackled,  and  threw 
off  firebrands. 

Of  all  those  who  sat  in  judgment  upon 
the  acts  and  the  utterances  of  the  man — and 
this  classification  would  include  every  ar 
ticulate  creature  in  the  United  States  who 
was  old  enough  to  be  reasonable — or  unrea 
sonable — only  a  handful  had  the  right  diag 
nosis  for  the  case.  Here  and  there  were  to 
be  found  men  who  knew  he  was  neither 
crazed  nor  inspired;  and  quite  rightly  they 
put  no  credence  in  the  charge  that  he  had 
[10] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

sold  himself  for  pieces  of  silver  to  the  enemy 
of  his  own  nation.  They  knew  what  ailed 
the  Honourable  Jason  Mallard — that  he 
was  a  victim  of  a  strangulated  ambition,  of 
an  egotistic  hernia.  He  was  hopelessly  rup 
tured  in  his  vanity.  All  his  life  he  had  lived 
on  love  of  notoriety,  and  by  that  same 
perverted  passion  he  was  being  eaten  up. 
Once  he  had  diligently  besought  the  confi 
dence  and  the  affections  of  a  majority  of  his 
fellow  citizens;  now  he  seemed  bent  upon 
consolidating  their  hate  for  him  into  a  com 
mon  flood  and  laving  himself  in  it.  Well, 
if  such  was  his  wish  he  was  having  it;  there 
was  no  denying  that. 

In  the  prime  of  his  life,  before  he  was 
fifty,  it  had  seemed  that  almost  for  the  ask 
ing  the  presidency  might  have  been  his.  He 
had  been  born  right,  as  the  saying  goes,  and 
bred  right,  to  make  suitable  presidential 
timber.  He  came  of  fine  clean  blends  of 
blood.  His  father  had  been  a  descendant 
of  Norman-English  folk  who  settled  in 
Maryland  before  the  Revolution;  the  fam 
ily  name  had  originally  been  Maillard,  af 
terward  corrupted  into  Mallard.  His  moth- 
[11] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

er's  people  were  Scotch-Irish  immigrants  of 
the  types  that  carved  out  their  homesteads 
with  axes  on  the  spiny  haunches  of  the  Cum- 
berlands.  In  the  Civil  War  his  father  had 
fought  for  the  Union,  in  a  regiment  of  bor 
derers;  two  of  his  uncles  had  been  partisan 
rangers  on  the  side  of  the  Confederacy.  If 
he  was  a  trifle  young  to  be  of  that  genera 
tion  of  public  men  who  were  born  in  un- 
chinked  log  cabins  of  the  wilderness  or  prai 
rie-sod  shanties,  at  least  he  was  to  enjoy  the 
subsequent  political  advantage  of  having 
come  into  the  world  in  a  two-room  house 
of  unpainted  pine  slabs  on  the  sloped  with 
ers  of  a  mountain  in  East  Tennessee.  As 
a  child  he  had  been  taken  by  his  parents  to 
one  of  the  states  which  are  called  pivotal 
states.  There  he  had  grown  up — farm  boy 
first,  teacher  of  a  district  school,  self-taught 
lawyer,  county  attorney,  state  legislator, 
governor,  congressman  for  five  terms,  a  floor 
leader  of  his  party — so  that  by  ancestry  and 
environment,  by  the  ethics  of  political  ex 
pediency  and  political  geography,  by  his 
own  record  and  by  the  traditions  of  the  time, 
[12] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

he  was  formed  to  make  an  acceptable  presi 
dential  aspirant. 

In  person  he  was  most  admirably  adapted 
for  the  role  of  statesman.  He  had  a  figure 
fit  to  set  off  a  toga,  a  brow  that  might  have 
worn  a  crown  with  dignity.  As  an  orator 
he  had  no  equal  in  Congress  or,  for  that 
matter,  out  of  it.  He  was  a  burning  moun 
tain  of  eloquence,  a  veritable  human  Vesu 
vius  from  whom,  at  will,  flowed  rhetoric 
or  invective,  satire  or  sentiment,  as  lava 
might  flow  from  a  living  volcano.  His  mind 
spawned  sonorous  phrases  as  a  roe  shad 
spawns  eggs.  He  was  in  all  outward  regards 
a  shape  of  a  man  to  catch  the  eye,  with  a 
voice  to  cajole  the  senses  as  with  music  of 
bugles,  and  an  oratory  to  inspire.  More 
over,  the  destiny  which  shaped  his  ends  had 
mercifully  denied  him  that  which  is  a  boon 
to  common  men  but  a  curse  to  public  men. 
Jason  Mallard  was  without  a  sense  of  hu 
mour.  He  never  laughed  at  others ;  he  never 
laughed  at  himself.  Certain  of  our  public 
leaders  have  before  now  fallen  into  the  wo- 
ful  error  of  doing  one  or  both  of  these 
things.  Wherefore  they  were  forever  after 
[13] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

called  humourists — and  ruined.  When  they 
said  anything  serious  their  friends  took  it 
humorously,  and  when  they  said  anything 
humorously  their  enemies  took  it  seriously. 
But  Congressman  Mallard  was  safe  enough 
there. 

Being  what  he  was — a  handsome  bundle 
of  selfishness,  coated  over  with  a  fine  gloss 
of  seeming  humility,  a  creature  whose  every 
instinct  was  richly  mulched  in  self-conceit 
and  yet  one  who  simulated  a  deep  devotion 
for  mankind  at  large — he  couldn't  make 
either  of  these  mistakes. 

Upon  a  time  the  presidential  nomination 
of  his  party — the  dominant  party,  too — had 
been  almost  within  his  grasp.  That  made 
his  losing  it  all  the  more  bitter.  Thereafter 
he  became  an  obstructionist,  a  fighter  out 
side  of  the  lines  of  his  own  party  and  not 
within  the  lines  of  the  opposing  party,  a 
leader  of  the  elements  of  national  discontent 
and  national  discord,  a  mouthpiece  for  all 
those  who  would  tear  down  the  pillars  of 
the  temple  because  they  dislike  its  present 
tenants.  Once  he  had  courted  popularity; 
presently — this  coming  after  his  re-election 
[14] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

to  a  sixth  term — he  went  out  of  his  way  to 
win  unpopularity.  His  invectives  ate  in  like 
corrosives,  his  metaphors  bit  like  adders. 
Always  he  had  been  like  a  sponge  to  sop  up 
adulation;  now  he  was  to  prove  that  when 
it  came  to  withstanding  denunciation  his 
hide  was  the  hide  of  a  rhino. 

This  war  came  along,  and  after  more 
than  two  years  of  it  came  our  entry  into  .it. 
For  the  most  part,  in  the  national  capital 
and  out  of  it,  artificial  lines  of  partisan  di 
vision  were  wiped  out  under  a  tidal  wave 
of  patriotism.  So  far  as  the  generality  of 
Americans  were  concerned,  they  for  the 
time  being  were  neither  Democrats  nor  Re 
publicans;  neither  were  they  Socialists  nor 
Independents  nor  Prohibitionists.  For  the 
duration  of  the  war  they  were  Americans, 
actuated  by  a  common  purpose  and  stirred 
by  a  common  danger.  Afterward  they 
might  be,  politically  speaking,  whatever 
they  chose  to  be,  but  for  the  time  being  they 
were  just  Americans.  Into  this  unique  con 
dition  Jason  Mallard  projected  himself,  an 
upstanding  reef  of  opposition  to  break  the 
[15] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

fine  continuity  of  a  mighty  ground  swell  of 
national  unity  and  national  harmony. 

Brilliant,  formidable,  resourceful,  seem 
ingly  invulnerable,  armoured  in  apparent 
disdain  for  the  contempt  and  the  indignation 
of  the  masses  of  the  citizenship,  he  fought 
against  and  voted  against  the  breaking  off  of 
diplomatic  relations  with  Germany;  fought 
against  the  draft,  fought  against  the  war 
appropriations,  fought  against  the  plans  for 
a  bigger  navy,  the  plans  for  a  great  army; 
fought  the  first  Liberty  Loan  and  the  sec 
ond;  he  fought,  in  December  last,  against 
a  declaration  of  war  with  Austro-Hungary. 
And,  so  far  as  the  members  of  Congress 
were  concerned,  he  fought  practically 
single-handed. 

His  vote  cast  in  opposition  to  the  will  of 
the  majority  meant  nothing;  his  voice  raised 
in  opposition  meant  much.  For  very  soon 
the  avowed  pacifists  and  the  secret  protag 
onists  of  Kultur,  the  blood-eyed  anarchists 
and  the  lily-livered  dissenters,  the  conscien 
tious  objectors  and  the  conscienceless  I.  W. 
W.  group,  saw  in  him  a  buttress  upon  which 
to  stay  their  cause.  The  lone  wolf  wasn't 
[16] 


THE   LONE    WOLF    WASN'T   A    LONE    WOLF    ANY   LONGER. 
HE    HAD   A    PACK    TO   RALLY    Al'.OUT    HTM. 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

a  lone  wolf  any  longer — he  had  a  pack  to 
rally  about  him,  yelping  approval  of  his 
every  word.  Day  by  day  he  grew  stronger 
and  day  by  day  the  sinister  elements  behind 
him  grew  bolder,  echoing  his  challenges 
against  the  Government  and  against  the  war. 
With  practically  every  newspaper  in  Amer 
ica,  big  and  little,  fighting  him;  with  every 
influential  magazine  fighting  him;  with  the 
leaders  of  the  Administration  fighting  him 
— he  nevertheless  loomed  on  the  national 
sky  line  as  a  great  sinister  figure  of  defiance 
and  rebellion. 

Deft  word  chandlers  of  the  magazines 
and  the  daily  press  coined  terms  of  oppro 
brium  for  him.  He  was  the  King  of  the  Cop 
perheads,  the  Junior  Benedict  Arnold,  the 
Modern  Judas,  the  Second  Aaron  Burr; 
these  things  and  a  hundred  others  they 
called  him;  and  he  laughed  at  hard  names 
and  in  reply  coined  singularly  apt  and  cruel 
synonyms  for  the  more  conspicuous  of  his 
critics.  The  oldest  active  editor  in  the  coun 
try — and  the  most  famous — called  upon  the 
body  of  which  he  was  a  member  to  impeach 
him  for  acts  of  disloyalty,  tending  to  give  aid 
[17] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

and  comfort  to  the  common  enemy.  The 
great  president  of  a  great  university  sug 
gested  as  a  proper  remedy  for  what  seemed 
to  ail  this  man  Mallard  that  he  be  shot 
against  a  brick  wall  some  fine  morning  at 
sunrise.  At  a  monstrous  mass  meeting  held 
in  the  chief  city  of  Mallard's  home  state, 
a  mass  meeting  presided  over  by  the  gov 
ernor  of  that  state,  resolutions  were  unani 
mously  adopted  calling  upon  him  to  resign 
his  commission  as  a  representative.  His  an 
swer  to  all  three  was  a  speech  which,  as 
translated,  was  shortly  thereafter  printed  in 
pamphlet  form  by  the  Berlin  Lokal-An- 
zeiger  and  circulated  among  the  German 
soldiers  at  the  Front. 

For  you  see  Congressman  Mallard  felt 
safe,  and  Congressman  Mallard  was  safe. 
His  buckler  was  the  right  of  free  speech; 
his  sword,  the  argument  that  he  stood  for 
peace  through  all  the  world,  for  arbitration 
and  disarmament  among  all  the  peoples  of 
the  world. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  a  day  in  January 
of  this  present  year  that  young  Drayton, 
[18] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

Washington  correspondent  for  the  New 
York  Epoch,  sat  in  the  office  of  his  bureau 
on  the  second  floor  of  the  Hibbett  Build 
ing,  revising  his  account  of  a  scene  he  had 
witnessed  that  afternoon  from  the  press  gal 
lery  of  the  House.  He  had  instructions 
from  his  managing  editor  to  cover  the  story 
at  length.  At  ten  o'clock  he  had  finished 
what  would  make  two  columns  in  type  and 
was  polishing  off  his  opening  paragraphs 
before  putting  the  manuscript  on  the  wire 
when  the  door  of  his  room  opened  and  a 
man  came  in — a  shabby,  tremulous  figure. 
The  comer  was  Quinlan. 

Quinlan  was  forty  years  old  and  looked 
fifty.  Before  whisky  got  him  Quinlan  had 
been  a  great  newspaper  man.  Now  that  his 
habits  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  hold  a 
steady  job  he  was  become  a  sort  of  news 
tipster.  Occasionally  also  he  did  small  lob 
bying  of  a  sort;  his  acquaintance  with  pub 
lic  men  and  his  intimate  knowledge  of 
Washington  officialdom  served  him  in  both 
these  precarious  fields  of  endeavour.  The 
liquor  he  drank — whenever  and  wherever 
he  could  get  it — had  bloated  his  face  out  of 
[19] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

all  wholesome  contour  and  had  given  to  his 
stomach  a  chronic  distention,  but  had  de 
pleted  his  frame  and  shrunken  his  limbs  so 
that  physically  he  was  that  common  enough 
type  of  the  hopeless  alcoholic— a  meagre 
rack  of  a  man  burdened  amidships  by  an 
unhealthy  and  dropsical  plumpness. 

At  times  when  he  was  not  completely 
sodden — when  he  had  in  him  just  enough 
whisky  to  stimulate  his  soaked  brain,  and 
yet  not  enough  of  it  to  make  him  maudlin- 
he  displayed  flashes  of  a  one-time  brilliancy 
which  by  contrast  with  his  usual  state  made 
the  ruinous  thing  he  had  done  to  himself 
seem  all  the  more  pitiable. 

Drayton  of  the  Epoch  was  one  of  the 
newspaper  men  upon  whom  he  sponged, 
Always  preserving  the  fiction  that  he  was 
borrowing  because  of  temporary  necessity, 
he  got  small  sums  of  money  out  of  Drayton 
from  time  to  time,  and  in  exchange  gave 
the  younger  man  bits  of  helpful  informa 
tion.  It  was  not  so  much  news  that  he  fur 
nished  Drayton  as  it  was  insight  into  causes 
working  behind  political  and  diplomatic 
events.  He  came  in  now  without  knock- 
[20] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

ing  and  stood  looking  at  Drayton  with  an 
ingratiating  flicker  in  his  dulled  eyes. 

"Hello,  Quinlan!"  said  Drayton.  "What's 
on  your  mind  to-night?" 

"Nothing,  until  you  get  done  there,"  said 
Quinlan,  letting  himself  lop  dawn  into  a 
chair  across  the  desk  from  Drayton.  "Go 
ahead  and  get  through.  I've  got  nowhere 
to  come  but  in,  and  nowhere  to  go  but  out." 

"I'm  just  putting  the  final  touches  on  my 
story  of  Congressman  Mallard's  speech," 
said  Drayton.  "Want  to  read  my  introduc 
tion?" 

Privately  Drayton  was  rather  pleased 
with  the  job  and  craved  approval  for  his 
craftsmanship  from  a  man  who  still  knew 
good  writing  when  he  saw  it,  even  though 
he  could  no  longer  write  it. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Quinlan.  "All  I 
ever  want  to  read  about  that  man  is  his 
obituary.";q  « 

"You  said  it!"  agreed  Drayton.  <(It's 
what  most  of  the  decent  people  in  this  coun 
try  are  thinking,  I  guess,  even  if  they  haven't 
begun  saying  it  out  loud  yet.  It  strikes  me 
the  American  people  are  a  mighty  patient 
[21] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

lot — putting  up  with  that  demagogue.  That 
was  a  rotten  thing  that  happened  up  on  the 
hill  to-day,  Quinlan — a  damnable  thing. 
Here  was  Mallard  making  the  best  speech 
in  the  worst  cause  that  ever  I  heard,  and 
getting  away  with  it  too.  And  there  was 
Richland  trying  to  answer  him  and  in  com 
parison  making  a  spectacle  of  himself— 
Richland  with  all  the  right  and  all  the  de 
cency  on  his  side  and  yet  showing  up  like 
a  perfect  dub  alongside  Mallard,  because 
he  hasn't  got  one-tenth  of  Mallard's  ability 
as  a  speaker  or  one-tenth  of  Mallard's  per 
sonal  fire  or  stage  presence  or  magnetism 
or  whatever  it  is  that  makes  Mallard  so 
plausible — and  so  dangerous." 

"That's  all  true  enough,  no  doubt,"  said 
Quinlan;  "and  since  it  is  true  why  don't 
the  newspapers  put  Mallard  out  of  busi 
ness?" 

"Why  don't  the  newspapers  put  him  out 
of  business!"  echoed  Drayton.  "Why,  good 
Lord,  man,  isn't  that  what  they've  all  been 
trying  to  do  for  the  last  six  months?  They 
call  him  every  name  in  the  calendar,  and  it 
all  rolls  off  him  like  water  off  a  duck's  back. 
[22], 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

He  seems  to  get  nourishment  out  of  abuse 
that  would  kill  any  other  man.  He  thrives 
on  it,  if  I'm  any  judge.  I  believe  a  hiss  is 
music  to  his  ears  and  a  curse  is  a  hushaby, 
lullaby  song.  Put  him  out  of  business? 
Why  say,  doesn't  nearly  every  editorial 
writer  in  the  country  jump  on  him  every 
day,  and  don't  all  the  paragraphers  gibe 
at  him,  and  don't  all  the  cartoonists  lampoon 
him,  and  don't  all  of  us  who  write  news 
from  down  here  in  Washington  give  him 
the  worst  of  it  in  our  despatches?  .  .  .  And 
what's  the  result?  Mallard  takes  on  flesh 
and  every  red-mouthed  agitator  in  the  coun 
try  and  every  mushy-brained  peace  fanatic 
and  every  secret  German  sympathiser  trails 
at  his  heels,  repeating  what  he  says.  I'd 
like  to  know  what  the  press  of  America 
hasn't  done  to  put  him  out  of  business! 

"There  never  was  a  time,  I  guess,  when 
the  reputable  press  of  this  country  was  so 
united  in  its  campaign  to  kill  off  a  man  as 
it  is  now  in  its  campaign  to  kill  off  Mallard. 
No  paper  gives  him  countenance,  except 
some  of  these  foreign-language  rags  and 
these  dirty  little  disloyal  sheets;  and  until 
[23] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

here  just  lately  even  they  didn't  dare  to 
come  out  in  the  open  and  applaud  him. 
Anyway,  who  reads  them  as  compared  with 
those  who  read  the  real  newspapers  and  the 
real  magazines?  Nobody!  And  yet  he  gets 
stronger  every  day.  He's  a  national  menace 
—that's  what  he  is." 

"You  said  it  again,  son,n  said  Quinlan. 
"Six  months  ago  he  was  a  national  nuisance 
and  now  he's  a  national  menace;  and  who's 
responsible— or,  rather,  what's  responsible— 
for  him  being  a  national  menace?  Well, 
I'm  going  to  tell  you;  but  first  I'm  going 
to  tell  you  something  about  Mallard.  I've 
known  him  for  twelve  years,  more  or  less— 
ever  since  he  came  here  to  Washington  in 
his  long  frock  coat  that  didn't  fit  him  and 
his  big  black  slouch  hat  and  his  white  string 
tie  and  in  all  the  rest  of  the  regalia  of  the 
counterfeit  who's  trying  to  fool  people  into 
believing  he's  part  tribune  and  part  peas 


ant." 


"You  wouldn't  call  Mallard  a  counter 
feit,  would  you?— a  man  with  the  gifts  he's 
got,"  broke  in  Drayton.     "I've  heard  him 
called  everything  else  nearly  in  the  Eng- 
[24] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

lish  language,  but  you're  the  first  man  that 
ever  called  him  a  counterfeit,  to  my  knowl 
edge!" 

"Counterfeit?  Why,  he's  as  bogus  as  a 
pewter  dime,"  said  Quinlan.  "I  tell  you 
I  know  the  man.  Because  you  don't  know 
him  he's  got  you  fooled  the  same  as  he's 
got  so  many  other  people  fooled.  Because 
he  looks  like  a  steel  engraving  of  Henry 
Clay  you  think  he  is  a  Henry  Clay,  I  sup 
pose — anyhow,  a  lot  of  other  people  do;  but 
I'm  telling  you  his  resemblance  to  Henry 
Clay  is  all  on  the  outside — it  doesn't  strike 
in  any  farther  than  the  hair  roots.  He  calls 
himself  a  self-made  man.  Well,  he's  not; 
he's  self-assembled,  that's  all.  He's  made 
up  of  standardised  and  interchangeable 
parts.  He's  compounded  of  something  bor 
rowed  from  every  political  mountebank 
who's  pulled  that  old  bunk  about  being  a 
friend  of  the  great  common  people  and  got 
ten  away  with  it  during  the  last  fifty  years. 
He's  not  a  real  genius.  He's  a  synthetic 
genius. 

"There  are  just  two  things  about  Mallard 
that  are  not  spurious — two  things  that  make 
[25] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

up  the  real  essence  and  tissue  of  him:  One 
is  his  genius  as  a  speaker  and  the  other  is 
his  vanity;  and  the  bigger  of  these,  you  take 
it  from  me,  is  his  vanity.  That's  the  thing 
he  feeds  on — vanity.  It's  the  breath  in  his 
nostrils,  it's  the  savour  and  the  salt  on  his 
daily  bread.  He  lives  on  publicity,  on  no 
toriety.  And  yet  you,  a  newspaper  man,  sit 
here  wondering  how  the  newspapers  could 
kill  him,  and  never  guessing  the  real  an 


swer." 


"Well,  what  is  the  answer  then?"  de 
manded  Drayton. 

"Wait,  I'm  coming  to  that.  The  press 
is  always  prating  about  the  power  of  the 
press,  always  nagging  about  pitiless  pub 
licity  being  potent  to  destroy  an  evil  thing 
or  a  bad  man,  and  all  that  sort  of  rot.  And 
yet  every  day  the  newspapers  give  the  lie 
to  their  own  boastings.  It's  true,  Drayton, 
that  up  to  a  certain  point  the  newspapers 
can  make  a  man  by  printing  favourable 
things  about  him.  By  that  same  token  they 
imagine  they  can  tear  him  down  by  print 
ing  unfavourable  things  about  him.  They 
think  they  can,  but  they  can't.  Let  them 
[26] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

get  together  in  a  campaign  of  vituperation 
against  a  man,  and  at  once  they  set  every 
body  to  talking  about  him.  Then  let  them 
carry  their  campaign  just  over  a  psychologi 
cal  dividing  line,  and  right  away  they  be 
gin,  against  their  wills,  to  manufacture  sen 
timent  for  him.  The  reactions  of  printer's 
ink  are  stronger  somehow  than  its  original 
actions — its  chemical  processes  acquire 
added  strength  in  the  back  kick.  What  has 
saved  many  a  rotten  criminal  in  this  coun 
try  from  getting  his  just  deserts?  It  wasn't 
the  fact  that  the  newspapers  were  all  for 
him.  It  was  the  fact  that  all  the  newspapers 
were  against  him.  The  under  dog  may  be 
ever  so  bad  a  dog,  but  only  let  enough  of 
us  start  kicking  him  all  together,  and  what's 
the  result?  Sympathy  for  him — that's  what. 
Calling  'Unclean,  unclean!'  after  a  leper 
never  yet  made  people  shun  him.  It  only 
makes  them  crowd  up  closer  to  see  his  sores. 
I'll  bet  if  the  facts  were  known  that  was 
true  two  thousand  years  ago.  Certainly  it's 
true  to-day,  and  human  nature  doesn't 
change. 

"But  the  newspapers  have  one  weapon 
[27] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

they've  never  yet  used;  at  least  as  a  unit 
they've  never  used  it.  It's  the  strongest  weap 
on  they've  got,  and  the  cheapest,  and  the 
most  terrible,  and  yet  they  let  it  lie  in  its 
scabbard  and  rust.  With  that  weapon  they 
could  destroy  any  human  being  of  the  type 
of  Jason  Mallard  in  one-twentieth  of  the 
time  it  takes  them  to  build  up  public  opin 
ion  for  or  against  him.  And  yet  they  can't 
see  it — or  won't  see  that  it's  there,  all  forged 
and  ready  to  their  hands." 

"And  that  weapon  is  what?"  asked  Dray- 
ton. 

"Silence.  Absolute,  utter  silence.  Si 
lence  is  the  loudest  thing  in  the  world.  It 
thunders  louder  than  the  thunder.  And  it's 
the  deadliest.  What  drives  men  mad  who 
are  put  in  solitary  confinement?  The  dark 
ness?  The  solitude?  Well,  they  help.  But 
it's  silence  that  does  the  trick— silence  that 
roars  in  their  ears  until  it  cracks  their  ear 
drums  and  addles  their  brains. 

"Mallard  is  a  national  peril,  we'll  con 
cede.  Very  well  then,  he  should  be  de 
stroyed.  And  the  surest,  quickest,  best  way 
for  the  newspapers  to  destroy  him  is  to  wall 
[28] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

him  up  in  silence,  to  put  a  vacuum  bell  of 
silence  down  over  him,  to  lock  him  up  in 
silence,  to  bury  him  alive  in  silence.  And 
that's  a  simpler  thing  than  it  sounds.  They 
have,  all  of  them,  only  to  do  one  little 
thing — just  quit  printing  his  name." 

"But  they  can't  quit  printing  his  name, 
Quinlan!"  exclaimed  Drayton.  "Mallard's 
news;  he's  the  biggest  figure  in  the  news 
that  there  is  to-day  in  this  country." 

"That's  the  same  foolish  argument  that 
the  average  newspaper  man  would  make," 
said  Quinlan  scornfully.  "Mallard  is  news 
because  the  newspapers  make  news  of  him — 
and  for  no  other  reason.  Let  them  quit,  and 
he  isn't  news  any  more — he's  a  nonentity, 
he's  nothing  at  all,  he's  null  and  he's  void. 
So  far  as  public  opinion  goes  he  will  cease 
to  exist,  and  a  thing  that  has  ceased  to  exist 
is  no  longer  news — once  you've  printed  the 
funeral  notice.  Every  popular  thing,  every 
conspicuous  thing  in  the  world  is  born  of 
notoriety  and  fed  on  notoriety — newspaper 
notoriety.  Notoriety  is  as  essential  to  the 
object  of  notoriety  itself  as  it  is  in  fashion 
ing  the  sentiments  of  those  who  read  about 
[29] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

it.  And  there's  just  one  place  where  you 
can  get  wholesale,  nation-wide  notoriety  to 
day — out  of  the  jaws  of  a  printing  press. 

"We  call  baseball  our  national  pastime- 
granted!  But  let  the  newspapers,  all  of 
them,  during  one  month  of  this  coming 
spring,  quit  printing  a  word  about  baseball, 
and  you'd  see  the  parks  closed  up  and  the 
weeds  growing  on  the  base  lines  and  the 
turnstiles  rusting  solid.  You  remember 
those  deluded  ladies  who  almost  did  the 
cause  of  suffrage  some  damage  last  year  by 
picketing  the  White  House  and  bothering  the 
President  when  he  was  busy  with  the  big 
gest  job  that  any  man  had  tackled  in  this 
country  since  Abe  Lincoln?  Remember 
how  they  raised  such  a  hullabaloo  when 
they  were  sent  to  the  workhouse?  Well, 
suppose  the  newspapers,  instead  of  giving 
them  front-page  headlines  and  columns  of 
space  every  day,  had  refused  to  print  a  line 
about  them  or  even  so  much  as  to  mention 
their  names.  Do  you  believe  they  would 
have  stuck  to  the  job  week  after  week  as 
they  did  stick  to  it?  I  tell  you  they'd  have 
quit  cold  inside  of  forty-eight  hours. 
[30] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

"Son,  your  average  latter-day  martyr  en 
dures  his  captivity  with  fortitude  because 
he  knows  the  world,  through  the  papers,  is 
going  to  hear  the  pleasant  clanking  of  his 
chains.  Otherwise  he'd  burst  from  his  cell 
with  a  disappointed  yell  and  go  out  of  the 
martyr  business  instanter.  He  may  not  fear 
the  gallows  or  the  stake  or  the  pillory,  but 
he  certainly  does  love  his  press  notices.  He 
may  or  may  not  keep  the  faith,  but  you  can 
bet  he  always  keeps  a  scrapbook.  Silence— 
that's  the  thing  he  fears  more  than  hang 
man's  nooses  or  firing  squads. 

"And  that's  the  cure  for  your  friend, 
Jason  Mallard,  Esquire.  Let  the  press  of 
this  country  put  the  curse  of  silence  on  him 
and  he's  done  for.  Silence  will  kill  off  his 
cause  and  kill  off  his  following  and  kill  him 
off.  It  will  kill  him  politically  and  figura 
tively.  I'm  not  sure,  knowing  the  man  as 
I  do,  but  what  it  will  kill  him  actually.  En 
tomb  him  in  silence  and  he'll  be  a  body  of 
death  and  corruption  in  two  weeks.  Just 
let  the  newspapers  and  the  magazines  pro 
vide  the  grave,  and  the  corpse  will  provide 
itself." 

[31] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

Drayton  felt  himself  catching  the  fever  of 
Quinlan's  fire.  He  broke  in  eagerly. 

"But,  Quinlan,  how  could  it  be  done?" 
he  asked.  "How  could  you  get  concerted 
action  for  a  thing  that's  so  revolutionary,  so 
unprecedented,  so— — ' 

"This  happens  to  be  one  time  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  United  States  when  you  could 
get  it,"  said  the  inebriate.  "You  could  get 
it  because  the  press  is  practically  united  to 
day  in  favour  of  real  Americanism.  Let 
some  man  like  your  editor-in-chief,  Fred 
Core,  or  like  Carlos  Seers  of  the  Era,  or 
Manuel  Oxus  of  the  Period,  or  Malcolm 
Flint  of  the  A.  P.  call  a  private  meeting  in 
New  York  of  the  biggest  individual  pub 
lishers  of  daily  papers  and  the  leading  mag 
azine  publishers  and  the  heads  of  all  the 
press  associations  and  news  syndicates,  from 
the  big  fellows  clear  down  to  the  shops  that 
sell  boiler  plate  to  the  country  weeklies  with 
patent  insides.  Through  their  concerted  in 
fluence  that  crowd  could  put  the  thing  over 
in  twenty-four  hours.  They  could  line  up 
the  Authors'  League,  line  up  the  defence 
societies,  line  up  the  national  advertisers, 
[32] 


THAT'S  THE  THING  HE  FEEDS  ON— VANITY. 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

line  up  organised  labour  in  the  printing 
trades — line  up  everybody  and  everything 
worth  while.  Oh,  it  could  be  done — make 
no  mistake  about  that.  Call  it  a  boycott; 
call  it  coercion,  mob  law,  lynch  law,  any 
thing  you  please — it's  justifiable.  And 
there'd  be  no  way  out  for  Mallard.  He 
couldn't  bring  an  injunction  suit  to  make  a 
newspaper  publisher  print  his  name.  He 
couldn't  buy  advertising  space  to  tell  about 
himself  if  nobody  would  sell  it  to  him. 
There's  only  one  thing  he  could  do — and 
if  I'm  any  judge  he'd  do  it,  sooner  or  later." 

Young  Drayton  stood  up.  His  eyes  were 
blazing. 

"Do  you  know  what  I'm  going  to  do, 
Quinlan?"  he  asked.  "I'm  going  to  run  up 
to  New  York  on  the  midnight  train.  If  I 
can't  get  a  berth  on  a  sleeper  I'll  sit  up  in  a 
day  coach.  I'm  going  to  rout  Fred  Core 
out  of  bed  before  breakfast  time  in  the 
morning  and  put  this  thing  up  to  him  just 
as  you've  put  it  up  to  me  here  to-night.  If 
I  can  make  him  see  it  as  you've  made  me 
see  it,  he'll  get  busy.  If  he  doesn't  see  it, 
there's  no  harm  done.  But  in  any  event 
[33] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

it's  your  idea,  and  I'll  see  to  it  that  you're 
not  cheated  out  of  the  credit  for  it." 

The  dipsomaniac  shook  his  head.  The 
flame  of  inspiration  had  died  out  in  Quin- 
lan;  he  was  a  dead  crater  again — a  drunk 
ard  quivering  for  the  lack  of  stimulant. 

"Never  mind  the  credit,  son.  What  was 
it  wise  old  Omar  said — 'Take  the  cash  and 
let  the  credit  go'? — something  like  that  any 
how.  You  run  along  up  to  New  York  and 
kindle  the  fires.  But  before  you  start  I  wish 
you'd  loan  me  about  two  dollars.  Some  of 
these  days  when  my  luck  changes  I'll  pay 
it  all  back.  I'm  keeping  track  of  what  I 
owe  you.  Or  say,  Drayton — make  it  five 
dollars,  won't  you,  if  you  can  spare  it?" 

Beforehand  there  was  no  announcement 
of  the  purpose  to  be  accomplished.  The 
men  in  charge  of  the  plan  and  the  men  di 
rectly  under  them,  whom  they  privily  com 
missioned  to  carry  out  their  intent,  were  all 
of  them  sworn  to  secrecy.  And  all  of  them 
kept  the  pledge.  On  a  Monday  Congress 
man  Mallard's  name  appeared  in  prac 
tically  every  daily  paper  in  America,  for 
[34] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

it  was  on  that  evening  that  he  was  to  ad 
dress  a  mass  meeting  at  a  hall  on  the  Lower 
West  Side  of  New  York — a  meeting  osten 
sibly  to  be  held  under  the  auspices  of  a  so- 
called  society  for  world  peace.  But  some 
time  during  Monday  every  publisher  of 
every  newspaper  and  periodical,  of  every 
trade  paper,  every  religious  paper,  every 
farm  paper  in  America,  received  a  telegram 
from  a  certain  address  in  New  York.  This 
telegram  was  marked  Confidential.  It  was 
signed  by  a  formidable  list  of  names.  It  was 
signed  by  three  of  the  most  distinguished 
editors  in  America;  by  the  heads  of  all  the 
important  news-gathering  and  news-distrib 
uting  agencies;  by  the  responsible  heads  of 
the  leading  feature  syndicates;  by  the  presi 
dents  of  the  two  principal  telegraph  com 
panies;  by  the  presidents  of  the  biggest 
advertising  agencies;  by  a  former  President 
of  the  United  States;  by  a  great  Catholic 
dignitary;  by  a  great  Protestant  evangelist, 
and  by  the  most  eloquent  rabbi  in  America; 
by  the  head  of  the  largest  banking  house  on 
this  continent;  by  a  retired  military  officer 
of  the  highest  rank;  by  a  national  leader  of 
[35] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

organised  labour;  by  the  presidents  of  four 
of  the  leading  universities;  and  finally  by 
a  man  who,  though  a  private  citizen,  was 
popularly  esteemed  to  be  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  National  Administration. 

While  this  blanket  telegram  was  travel 
ling  over  the  wires  a  certain  magazine  pub 
lisher  was  stopping  his  presses  to  throw  out 
a  special  article  for  the  writing  of  which  he 
had  paid  fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  the  best 
satirical  essayist  in  the  country;  and  another 
publisher  was  countermanding  the  order  he 
had  given  to  a  distinguished  caricaturist  for 
a  series  of  cartoons  all  dealing  with  the 
same  subject,  and  was  tearing  up  two  of 
the  cartoons  which  had  already  been  deliv 
ered  and  for  which  he  already  had  paid. 
He  offered  to  pay  for  the  cartoons  not  yet 
drawn,  but  the  artist  declined  to  accept  fur 
ther  payment  when  he  was  told  in  confi 
dence  the  reason  for  the  cancellation  of  the 
commission. 

On    a    Monday    morning    Congressman 

Jason  Mallard's  name  was  in  every  paper; 

his  picture  was  in  many  of  them.    On  the 

day  following—    -  But  I  am  getting  ahead 

[36]- 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

of  my  story.  Monday  evening  comes  be 
fore  Tuesday  morning,  and  first  I  should 
tell  what  befell  on  Monday  evening  down 
on  the  Lower  West  Side. 

That  Monday  afternoon  Mallard  came 
up  from  Washington;  only  his  'secretary 
came  with  him.  Three  men — the  owner  of 
a  publication  lately  suppressed  by  the  Post 
Office  Department  for  seditious  utterances, 
a  former  clergyman  whose  attitude  in  the 
present  crisis  had  cost  him  his  pulpit,  and  a 
former  college  professor  of  avowedly  an 
archistic  tendencies — met  him  at  the  Penn 
sylvania  Station.  Of  the  three  only  the 
clergyman  had  a  name  which  bespoke 
Anglo-Saxon  ancestry.  These  three  men 
accompanied  him  to  the  home  of  the  editor, 
where  they  dined  together;  and  when  the 
dinner  was  ended  an  automobile  bore  the 
party  through  a  heavy  snowstorm  to  the 
hall  where  Mallard  was  to  speak. 

That  is  to  say,  it  bore  the  party  to  within 
a  block  and  a  half  of  the  hall.  It  could  get 
no  nearer  than  that  by  reason  of  the  fact 
that  the  narrow  street  from  house  line  on 
one  side  to  house  line  on  the  other  was 
[37] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

jammed  with  men  and  women,  thousands 
of  them,  who,  coming  too  late  to  secure  ad 
mission  to  the  hall — the  hall  was  crowded 
as  early  as  seven  o'clock — had  stayed  on, 
outside,  content  to  see  their  champion  and 
to  cheer  him  since  they  might  not  hear  him. 
They  were  half  frozen.  The  snow  in  which 
they  stood  had  soaked  their  shoes  and 
chilled  their  feet;  there  were  holes  in  the 
shoes  which  some  of  them  wore.  The  snow 
stuck  to  their  hats  and  clung  on  their  shoul 
ders,  making  streaks  there  like  fleecy  epau 
lets  done  in  the  colour  of  peace,  which  also 
is  the  colour  of  cowardice  and  surrender. 
There  was  a  cold  wind  which  made  them  all 
shiver  and  set  the  teeth  of  many  of  them  to 
chattering;  but  they  had  waited. 

A  squad  of  twenty-odd  policemen, 
aligned  in  a  triangular  formation  about 
Mallard  and  his  sponsors  and,  with  Captain 
Bull  Hargis  of  the  Traffic  Squad  as  its  mas 
sive  apex,  this  human  ploughshare  literally 
slugged  a  path  through  the  mob  to  the  side 
entrance  of  the  hall.  By  sheer  force  the  liv 
ing  wedge  made  a  furrow  in  the  multitude — 
a  furrow  that  instantly  closed  in  behind  it 
[38] 


The  Thunders  of 'Silence 

as  it  pressed  forward.  Undoubtedly  the  po 
licemen  saved  Congressman  Mallard  from 
being  crushed  and  buffeted  down  under  the 
caressing  hands  of  those  who  strove  with 
his  bodyguard  to  touch  him,  to  embrace 
him,  to  clasp  his  hand.  Foreign-born 
women,  whose  sons  were  in  the  draft,  sought 
to  kiss  the  hem  of  his  garments  when  he 
passed  them  by,  and  as  they  stooped  they 
were  bowled  over  by  the  uniformed  burlies 
and  some  of  them  were  trampled.  Disre 
garding  the  buffeting  blows  of  the  police 
men's  gloved  fists,  men,  old,  young  and  mid 
dle-aged,  flung  themselves  against  the  es 
corts,  crying  out  greetings.  Above  the  hys 
terical  yelling  rose  shrill  cries  of  pain, 
curses,  shrieks.  Guttural  sounds  of  cheer 
ing  in  snatchy  fragments  were  mingled  with 
terms  of  approval  and  of  endearment  and  of 
affection  uttered  in  English,  in  German,  in 
Russian,  in  Yiddish  and  in  Finnish. 

Afterward  Captain  Bull  Hargis  said  that 
never  in  his  recollection  of  New  York 
crowds  had  there  been  a  crowd  so  hard  to 
contend  against  or  one  so  difficult  to  pene 
trate;  he  said  this  between  gasps  for  breath 
[39] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

while  nursing  a  badly  sprained  thumb.  The 
men  under  him  agreed  with  him.  The 
thing  overpassed  anything  in  their  profes 
sional  experiences.  Several  of  them  were 
veterans  of  the  force  too. 

It  was  a  dramatic  entrance  which  Con 
gressman  Mallard  made  before  his  audience 
within  the  hall,  packed  as  the  hall  was, 
with  its  air  all  hot  and  sticky  with  the  ani 
mal  heat  of  thousands  of  closely  bestowed 
human  bodies.  Hardly  could  it  have  been 
a  more  dramatic  entrance.  From  some 
where  in  the  back  he  suddenly  came  out 
upon  the  stage.  He  was  bareheaded  and 
bare-throated.  Outside  in  that  living  whirl 
pool  his  soft  black  hat  had  been  plucked 
from  his  head  and  was  gone.  His  collar,  tie 
and  all,  had  been  torn  from  about  his  neck, 
and  the  same  rudely  affectionate  hand  that 
wrested  the  collar  away  had  ripped  his 
linen  shirt  open  so  that  the  white  flesh  of 
his  chest  showed  through  the  gap  of  the 
tear.  His  great  disorderly  mop  of  bright 
red  hair  stood  erect  on  his  scalp  like  an 
oriflamme.  His  overcoat  was  half  on  and 
half  off  his  back. 

[40] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

At  sight  of  him  the  place  rose  at  him, 
howling  out  its  devotion.  He  flung  off  his 
overcoat,  letting  it  fall  upon  the  floor,  and 
he  strode  forward  almost  to  the  trough  of 
the  footlights;  and  then  for  a  space  he 
stood  there  on  the  rounded  apron  of  the 
platform,  staring  out  into  the  troubled,  toss 
ing  pool  of  contorted  faces  and  tossing  arms 
below  him  and  about  him.  Demagogue  he 
may  have  been;  demigod  he  looked  in  that, 
his  moment  of  supreme  triumph,  biding 
his  time  to  play  upon  the  passions  and  the 
prejudices  of  this  multitude  as  a  master  or 
ganist  would  play  upon  the  pipes  of  an  or 
gan.  Here  was  clay,  plastic  to  his  supple 
fingers — here  in  this  seething  conglomerate 
of  half-baked  intellectuals,  of  emotional 
rebels  against  constituted  authority,  of  alien 
enemies  of  malcontents  and  malingerers,  of 
parlour  anarchists  from  the  studios  of  Bo- 
hemianism  and  authentic  anarchists  from 
the  slums. 

Ten  blaring,  exultant  minutes  passed  be 
fore  the  ex-clergyman,  who  acted  as  chair 
man,  could  secure  a  measure  of  compara 
tive  quiet.  At  length  there  came  a  lull  in 
[41] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

the  panting  tumult.  Then  the  chair  made 
an  announcement  which  brought  forth  in 
fuller  volume  than  ever  a  responsive  roar  of 
approval.  He  announced  that  on  the  fol 
lowing  night  and  on  the  night  after,  Con 
gressman  Mallard  would  speak  at  Madison 
Square  Garden,  under  the  largest  roof  on 
Manhattan  Island.  The  committee  in 
charge  had  been  emboldened  by  the  size  of 
this  present  outpouring  to  engage  the  gar 
den;  the  money  to  pay  the  rent  for  those 
two  nights  had  already  been  subscribed;  ad 
mission  would  be  free;  all  would  be  wel 
come  to  come  and — quoting  the  chairman— 
"to  hear  the  truth  about  the  war  into  whicri 
the  Government,  at  the  bidding  of  the  capi 
talistic  classes,  had  plunged  the  people  of 
the  nation."  Then  in  ten  words  he  intro 
duced  the  speaker,  and  as  the  speaker  raised 
his  arms  above  his  head  invoking  quiet, 
there  fell,  magically,  a  quick,  deep,  breath 
less  hush  upon  the  palpitant  gathering. 

"And  this" — he  began  without  preamble 

in  that  great  resonant  voice  of  his,  that  was 

like  a  blast  of  a  trumpet — "and  this,  my 

countrymen,  is  the  answer  which  the  plain 

[42] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

people  of  this  great  city  make  to  the  cor 
rupted  and  misguided  press  that  would  cru 
cify  any  man  who  dares  defy  it." 

He  spoke  for  more  than  an  hour,  and 
when  he  was  done  his  hearers  were  as  mad 
men  and  madwomen.  And  yet  so  skilfully 
had  he  phrased  his  utterances,  so  craftily 
had  he  injected  the  hot  poison,  so  deftly  had 
he  avoided  counselling  outrightdisobedience 
to  the  law,  that  sundry  secret-service  men 
who  had  been  detailed  to  attend  the  meet 
ing  and  to  arrest  the  speaker,  United  States 
representative  though  he  be,  in  case  he 
preached  a  single  sentence  of  what  might 
be  interpreted  as  open  treason,  were  com 
pletely  circumvented. 

It  is  said  that  on  this  night  Congressman 
Mallard  made  the  best  speech  he  ever  made 
in  his  whole  life.  But  as  to  that  we  cannot 
be  sure,  and  for  this  reason: 

On  Monday  morning,  as  has  twice  been 
stated  in  this  account.  Congressman  Mal 
lard's  name  was  in  every  paper,  nearly,  in 
America.  On  Tuesday  morning  not  a  line 
concerning  him  or  concerning  his  speech  or 
the  remarkable  demonstration  of  the  night 
[43] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

before — not  a  line  of  news,  not  a  line  of  edi 
torial  comment,  not  a  paragraph — appeared 
in  any  newspaper  printed  in  the  English 
language  on  this  continent.  The  silent  war 
had  started. 

Tuesday  evening  at  eight-fifteen  Con 
gressman  Mallard  came  to  Madison  Square 
Garden,  accompanied  by  the  honour  guard 
of  his  sponsors.  The  police  department, 
taking  warning  by  what  had  happened  on 
Monday  night  down  on  the  West  Side,  had 
sent  the  police  reserves  of  four  precincts — 
six  hundred  uniformed  men,  under  an  in 
spector  and  three  captains — to  handle  the 
expected  congestion  inside  and  outside  the 
building.  These  six  hundred  men  had  little 
to  do  after  they  formed  their  lines  and  lanes 
except  to  twiddle  their  night  sticks  and  to 
stamp  their  chilled  feet. 

For  a  strange  thing  befell.  Thousands 
had  participated  in  the  affair  of  the  night 
before.  By  word  of  mouth  these  thousands 
most  surely  must  have  spread  the  word 
among  many  times  their  own  number  of 
sympathetic  individuals.  And  yet — this 
was  the  strange  part — by  actual  count  less 
[44] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

than  fifteen  hundred  persons,  exclusive  of 
the  policemen,  who  were  there  because  their 
duty  sent  them  there,  attended  Tuesday 
night's  meeting.  To  be  exact  there  were 
fourteen  hundred  and  seventy-five  of  them. 
In  the  vast  oval  of  the  interior  they  made 
a  ridiculously  small  clump  set  midway  of 
the  area,  directly  in  front  of  the  platform 
that  had  been  put  up.  All  about  them 
were  wide  reaches  of  seating  space — empty. 
The  place  was  a  huge  vaulted  cavern,  cheer 
less  as  a  cave,  full  of  cold  drafts  and  strange 
echoes.  Congressman  Mallard  spoke  less 
than  an  hour,  and  this  time  he  did  not  make 
the  speech  of  his  life. 

Wednesday  night  thirty  policemen  were 
on  duty  at  Madison  Square  Garden,  Acting 
Captain  O'Hara  of  the  West  Thirtieth 
Street  Station  being  in  command.  Over  the 
telephone  to  headquarters  O'Hara,  at  eight- 
thirty,  reported  that  his  tally  accounted  for 
two  hundred  and  eighty-one  persons  pres 
ent.  Congressman  Mallard,  he  stated,  had 
not  arrived  yet,  but  was  momentarily  ex 
pected. 

At  eight-forty-five  O'Hara  telephoned 
[45] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

again.  Congressman  Mallard  had  just  sent 
word  that  he  was  ill  and  would  not  be  able 
to  speak.  This  message  had  been  brought 
by  Professor  Rascovertus,  the  former  col 
lege  professor,  who  had  come  in  a  cab  and 
had  made  the  bare  announcement  to  those 
on  hand  and  then  had  driven  away.  The 
assembled  two  hundred  and  eighty-one  had 
heard  the  statement  in  silence  and  forth 
with  had  departed  in  a  quiet  and  orderly 
manner.  O'Hara  asked  permission  to  send 
his  men  back  to  the  station  house. 

Congressman  Mallard  returned  to  Wash 
ington  on  the  midnight  train,  his  secretary 
accompanying  him.  Outwardly  he  did  not 
bear  himself  like  a  sick  man,  but  on  his 
handsome  face  was  a  look  which  the  secre 
tary  had  never  before  seen  on  his  employ 
er's  face.  It  was  the  look  of  a  man  who  asks 
himself  a  question  over  and  over  again. 

On  Thursday,  in  conspicuous  type,  black 
faced  and  double-leaded,  there  appeared 
on  the  front  page  and  again  at  the  top  of 
the  editorial  column  of  every  daily  paper, 
morning  and  evening,  in  the  United  States, 
and  in  every  weekly  and  every  monthly 
[46] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

paper  whose  date  of  publication  chanced  to 
be  Thursday,  the  following  paragraph: 

"There  is  a  name  which  the  press  of 
America  no  longer  prints.  Let  every  true 
American,  in  public  or  in  private,  cease 
hereafter  from  uttering  that  name." 

Invariably  the  caption  over  this  para 
graph  was  the  one  word: 

SILENCE! 

One  week  later,  to  the  day,  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  richest  men  in  America  died  of 
acute  pneumonia  at  her  home  in  Chicago. 
Practically  all  the  daily  papers  in  America 
carried  notices  of  this  lady's  death;  the 
wealth  of  her  husband  and  her  own  promi 
nence  in  social  and  philanthropic  affairs 
justified  this.  At  greater  or  at  less  length  it 
was  variously  set  forth  that  she  was  the 
niece  of  a  former  ambassador  to  the  Court 
of  St.  James;  that  she  was  the  national  head 
of  a  great  patriotic  organisation;  that  she 
was  said  to  have  dispensed  upward  of  fifty 
[47] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

thousand  dollars  a  year  in  charities;  that 
she  was  born  in  such  and  such  a  year  at  such 
and  such  a  place ;  that  she  left,  besides  a  hus 
band,  three  children  and  one  grandchild; 
and  so  forth  and  so  on. 

But  not  a  single  paper  in  the  United 
States  stated  that  she  was  the  only  sister 
of  Congressman  Jason  Mallard. 

The  remainder  of  this  account  must  nec 
essarily  be  in  the  nature  of  a  description  of 
episodes  occurring  at  intervals  during  a 
period  of  about  six  weeks;  these  episodes, 
though  separated  by  lapses  of  time,  are 
nevertheless  related. 

Three  days  after  the  burial  of  his  sister 
Congressman  Mallard  took  part  in  a  debate 
on  a  matter  of  war-tax  legislation  upon  the 
floor  of  the  House.  As  usual  he  voiced  the 
sentiments  of  a  minority  of  one,  his  vote 
being  the  only  vote  cast  in  the  negative  on 
the  passage  of  the  measure.  His  speech  was 
quite  brief.  To  his  colleagues,  listening  in 
dead  silence  without  sign  of  dissent  or  ap 
proval,  it  seemed  exceedingly  brief,  seeing 
that  nearly  always  before  Mallard,  when  he 
spoke  at  all  upon  any  question,  spoke  at 
[48] 


HE    MAY    OR    MAY    NOT    KEEP    FAITH,    BUT    YOU    CAN    BET    HE 
ALWAYS    KEEPS    A    SCRAP-BOOK. 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

length.  While  he  spoke  the  men  in  the 
press  gallery  took  no  notes,  and  when  he 
had  finished  and  was  leaving  the  chamber 
it  was  noted  that  the  venerable  Congress 
man  Boulder,  a  man  of  nearly  eighty,  drew 
himself  well  into  his  seat,  as  though  he 
feared  Mallard  in  passing  along  the  aisle 
might  brush  against  him. 

The  only  publication  in  America  that  car 
ried  a  transcript  of  Congressman  Mallard's 
remarks  on  this  occasion  was  the  Congres 
sional  Record. 

At  the  next  day's  session  Congressman 
Mallard's  seat  was  vacant;  the  next  day 
likewise,  and  the  next  it  was  vacant.  It 
was  rumoured  that  he  had  left  Washington, 
his  exact  whereabouts  being  unknown. 
However,  no  one  in  Washington,  so  far  as 
was  known,  in  speaking  of  his  disappear 
ance,  mentioned  him  by  name.  One  man 
addressing  another  would  merely  say  that 
he  understood  a  certain  person  had  left  town 
or  that  he  understood  a  certain  person  was 
still  missing  from  town;  the  second  man 
in  all  likelihood  would  merely  nod  under- 
[49] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

standingly  and  then  by  tacit  agreement  the 
subject  would  be  changed. 

Just  outside  one  of  the  lunch  rooms  in  the 
Union  Station  at  St.  Louis  late  one  night 
in  the  latter  part  of  January  an  altercation 
occurred  between  two  men.  One  was  a  tall, 
distinguished-looking  man  of  middle  age. 
The  other  was  a  railroad  employe — a 
sweeper  and  cleaner. 

It  seemed  that  the  tall  man,  coming  out 
of  the  lunch  room,  and  carrying  a  travelling 
bag  and  a  cane,  stumbled  over  the  broom 
which  the  sweeper  was  using  on  the  floor 
just  beyond  the  doorway.  The  traveller, 
who  appeared  to  have  but  poor  control  over 
his  temper,  or  rather  no  control  at  all  over 
it,  accused  the  station  hand  of  carelessness 
and  cursed  him.  The  station  hand  made 
an  indignant  and  impertinent  denial.  At 
that  the  other  flung  down  his  bag,  swung 
aloft  his  heavy  walking  stick  and  struck 
the  sweeper  across  the  head  with  force  suf 
ficient  to  lay  open  the  victim's  scalp  in  a 
two-inch  gash,  which  bled  freely. 

For  once  a  policeman  was  on  the  spot 
when  trouble  occurred.  This  particular 
[50] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

policeman  was  passing  through  the  train 
shed  and  he  saw  the  blow  delivered.  He 
ran  up  and,  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  put  both 
men  under  technical  arrest.  The  sweeper, 
who  had  been  bowled  over  by  the  clout  he 
had  got,  made  a  charge  of  unprovoked  as 
sault  against  the  stranger;  the  latter  ex 
pressed  a  blasphemous  regret  that  he  had. 
not  succeeded  in  cracking  the  sweeper's 
skull.  He  appeared  to  be  in  a  highly  nerv 
ous,  highly  irritable  state.  At  any  rate  such 
was  the  interpretation  which  the  patrolman 
put  upon  his  aggressive  prisoner's  be 
haviour. 

Walking  between  the  pair  to  prevent  fur 
ther  hostilities  the  policeman  took  both  men 
into  the  station  master's  office,  his  inten 
tion  being  to  telephone  from  there  for  a 
patrol  wagon.  The  night  station  master  ac 
companied  them.  Inside  the  room,  while 
the  station  master  was  binding  up  the  wound 
in  the  sweeper's  forehead  with  a  pocket 
handkerchief,  it  occurred  to  the  policeman 
that  in  the  flurry  of  excitement  he  had  not 
found  out  the  name  of  the  tall  and  still  ex 
cited  belligerent.  The  sweeper  he  already 
[51] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

knew.  He  asked  the  tall  man  for  his  name 
and  business. 

"My  name,"  said  the  prisoner,  "is  Jason 
C.  Mallard.  I  am  a  member  of  Congress." 

The  station  master  forgot  to  make  the 
knot  in  the  bandage  he  was  tying  about  the 
sweeper's  head.  The  sweeper  forgot  the 
pain  of  his  new  headache  and  the  blood 
which  trickled  down  his  face  and  fell  upon 
the  front  of  his  overalls.  As  though  gov 
erned  by  the  same  set  of  wires  these  two 
swung  about,  and  with  the  officer  they  stared 
at  the  stranger.  And  as  they  stared,  recog 
nition  came  into  the  eyes  of  all  three,  and 
they  marvelled  that  before  now  none  of  them 
had  discerned  the  identity  of  the  owner  of 
that  splendid  tousled  head  of  hair  and  those 
clean-cut  features,  now  swollen  and  red 
with  an  unreasonable  choler.  The  police 
man  was  the  first  to  get  his  shocked  and 
jostled  senses  back,  and  the  first  to  speak. 
He  proved  himself  a  quick-witted  person 
that  night,  this  policeman  did;  and  perhaps 
this  helps  to  explain  why  his  superior,  the 
head  of  the  St.  Louis  police  department, 
[52] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

on  the  very  next  day  promoted  him  to  be  a 
sergeant. 

But  when  he  spoke  it  was  not  to  Mallard 
but  to  the  sweeper. 

"Look  here,  Mel  Harris,"  he  said;  "you 
call  yourself  a  purty  good  Amurican,  don't 
you?" 

"You  bet  your  life  I  do!"  was  the  answer. 
"Ain't  I  got  a  boy  in  camp  soldierin'P" 

"Well,  I  got  two  there  myself,"  said  the 
policeman;  "but  that  ain't  the  question  now. 
I  see  you've  got  a  kind  of  a  little  bruised 
place  there  on  your  head.  Now  then,  as 
a  good  Amurican  tryin'  to  do  your  duty  to 
your  country  at  all  times,  I  want  you  to  tell 
me  how  you  come  by  that  there  bruise.  Did 
somebody  mebbe  hit  you,  or  as  a  matter  of 
fact  ain't  it  the  truth  that  you  jest  slipped 
on  a  piece  of  banana  peelin'  or  something 
of  that  nature,  and  fell  up  against  the  door 
jamb  of  that  lunch  room  out  yonder?" 

For  a  moment  the  sweeper  stared  at  his 
interrogator,  dazed.  Then  a  grin  of  appre 
ciation  bisected  his  homely  red-streaked 
face. 

"Why,  it  was  an  accident,  officer,"  he 
[53] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

answered.  "I  slipped  down  and  hit  my 
own  self  a  wallop,  jest  like  you  said.  Any 
way,  it  don't  amount  to  nothin'." 

"You  seen  what  happened,  didn't  you?" 
went  on  the  policeman,  addressing  the  sta 
tion  master.  "It  was  a  pure  accident,  wasn't 
it?" 

"That's  what  it  was — a  pure  accident," 
stated  the  station  master. 

"Then,  to  your  knowledge,  there  wasn't 
no  row  of  any  sort  occurring  round  here  to 
night?"  went  on  the  policeman. 

"Not  that  I  heard  of." 

"Well,  if  there  had  a-been  you'd  a-heard 
of  it,  wouldn't  you?" 

"Sure  I  would!" 

"That's  good,"  said  the  policeman.  He 
jabbed  a  gloved  thumb  toward  the  two 
witnesses.  "Then,  see  here,  Harris!  Bein' 
as  it  was  an  accident  pure  and  simple  and 
your  own  fault  besides,  nobody — no  out 
sider — couldn't  a-had  nothin'  to  do  with 
your  gettin'  hurt,  could  he?" 

"Not  a  thing  in  the  world,"  replied 
Harris. 

[54] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

"Not  a  thing  in  the  world,"  echoed  the 
station  master. 

"And  you  ain't  got  any  charge  to  make 
against  anybody  for  what  was  due  to  your 
own  personal  awkwardness,  have  you?" 
suggested  the  blue-coated  prompter. 

"Certainly  I  ain't!"  disclaimed  Harris 
almost  indignantly. 

Mallard  broke  in:  "You  can't  do  this — 
you  men,"  he  declared  hoarsely.  "I  struck 
that  man  and  I'm  glad  I  did  strike  him — 
damn  him!  I  wish  I'd  killed  him.  I'm 
willing  to  take  the  consequences.  I  demand 
that  you  make  a  report  of  this  case  to  your 
superior  officer." 

As  though  he  had  not  heard  him — as 
though  he  did  not  know  a  fourth  person 
was  present — the  policeman,  looking  right 
past  Mallard  with  a  levelled,  steady,  con 
temptuous  gaze,  addressed  the  other  two. 
His  tone  was  quite  casual,  and  yet  somehow 
he  managed  to  freight  his  words  with  a 
scorn  too  heavy  to  be  expressed  in  mere 
words : 

"Boys,"  he  said,  "it  seems-like  to  me  the 
air  in  this  room  is  so  kind  of  foul  that  it 
[55] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

ain't  fitten  for  good  Amuricans  to  be  breath- 
in'  it.  So  I'm  goin'  to  open  up  this  here 
door  and  see  if  it  don't  purify  itself — of  its 
own  accord." 

He  stepped  back  and  swung  the  door 
wide  open;  then  stepped  over  and  joined 
the  station  master  and  the  sweeper.  And 
there  together  they  all  three  stood  without 
a  word  from  any  one  of  them  as  the  fourth 
man,  with  his  face  deadly  white  now  where 
before  it  had  been  a  passionate  red,  and  his 
head  lolling  on  his  breast,  though  he  strove 
to  hold  it  rigidly  erect,  passed  silently  out 
of  the  little  office.  Through  the  opened 
door  the  trio  with  their  eyes  followed  him 
while  he  crossed  the  concrete  floor  of  the 
concourse  and  passed  through  a  gate.  They 
continued  to  watch  until  he  had  disappeared 
in  the  murk,  going  toward  where  a  row  of 
parked  sleepers  stood  at  the  far  end  of  the 
train  shed. 

Yet  another  policeman  is  to  figure  in  this 

recital  of  events.    This  policeman's  name  is 

Caleb  Waggoner  and  this  Caleb  Waggoner 

was  and  still  is  the  night  marshal  in  a  small 

[56] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

town  in  Iowa  on  the  Missouri  River.  He  is 
one-half  the  police  force  of  the  town,  the 
other  half  being  a  constable  who  does  duty 
in  the  daytime.  Waggoner  suffers  from  an 
affection  which  in  a  large  community  might 
prevent  him  from  holding  such  a  job  as  the 
one  he  does  hold.  He  has  an  impediment 
of  the  speech  which  at  all  times  causes  him 
to  stammer  badly.  When  he  is  excited  it  is 
only  by  a  tremendous  mental  and  physical 
effort  and  after  repeated  endeavours  that  he 
can  form  the  words  at  all.  In  other  regards 
he  is  a  first-rate  officer,  sober,  trustworthy 
and  kindly. 

On  the  night  of  the  eighteenth  of  Febru 
ary,  at  about  half  past  eleven  o'clock,  Mar 
shal  Waggoner  was  completing  his  regular 
before-midnight  round  of  the  business  dis 
trict.  The  weather  was  nasty,  with  a  raw 
wet  wind  blowing  and  half-melted  slush 
underfoot.  In  his  tour  he  had  encountered 
not  a  single  person.  That  dead  dumb  quiet 
which  falls  upon  a  sleeping  town  on  a  win 
ter's  night  was  all  about  him.  But  as  he 
turned  out  of  Main  Street,  which  is  the 
principal  thoroughfare,  into  Sycamore 
[57] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

Street,  a  short  byway  running  down  be 
tween  scattered  buildings  and  vacant  lots 
to  the  river  bank  a  short  block  away,  he 
saw  a  man  standing  at  the  side  door  of  the 
Eagle  House,  the  town's  second-best  hotel. 
A  gas  lamp  flaring  raggedly  above  the  door 
way  brought  out  the  figure  with  distinct 
ness.  The  man  was  not  moving — he  was 
just  standing  there,  with  the  collar  of  a 
heavy  overcoat  turned  up  about  his  throat 
and  a  soft  black  hat  with  a  wide  brim  drawn 
well  down  upon  his  head. 

Drawing  nearer,  Waggoner,  who  by 
name  or  by  sight  knew  every  resident  of  the 
town,  made  up  his  mind  that  the  loiterer 
was  a  stranger.  Now  a  stranger  abroad  at 
such  an  hour  and  apparently  with  no  busi 
ness  to  mind  would  at  once  be  mentally 
catalogued  by  the  vigilant  night  marshal 
as  a  suspicious  person.  So  when  he  had 
come  close  up  to  the  other,  padding  noise 
lessly  in  his  heavy  rubber  boots,  the  officer 
halted  and  from  a  distance  of  six  feet  or  so 
stared  steadfastly  at  the  suspect.  The  sus 
pect  returned  the  look. 

What  Waggoner  saw  was  a  thin,  haggard 
[58] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

face  covered  to  the  upper  bulge  of  the  jaw 
bones  with  a  disfiguring  growth  of  reddish 
whiskers  and  inclosed  at  the  temples  by 
shaggy,  unkempt  strands  of  red  hair  which 
protruded  from  beneath  the  black  hat. 
Evidently  the  man  had  not  been  shaved  for 
weeks;  certainly  his  hair  needed  trimming 
and  combing.  But  what  at  the  moment  im 
pressed  Waggoner  more  even  than  the  gen 
eral  unkemptness  of  the  stranger's  aspect 
was  the  look  out  of  his  eyes.  They  were 
widespread  eyes  and  bloodshot  as  though 
from  lack  of  sleep,  and  they  glared  into 
Waggoner's  with  a  peculiar,  strained,  heark 
ening  expression.  There  was  agony  in  them 
— misery  unutterable. 

Thrusting  his  head  forward  then,  the 
stranger  cried  out,  and  his  voice,  which  in 
his  first  words  was  deep  and  musical,  sud 
denly,  before  he  had  uttered  a  full  sentence, 
turned  to  a  sharp,  half-hysterical  falsetto: 

"Why  don't  you  say  something  to  me, 

man?"  he  cried  at  the  startled  Waggoner. 

"For  God's  sake,  why  don't  you  speak  to 

me?    Even  if  you  do  know  me,  why  don't 

[59] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

you  speak?  Why  don't  you  call  me  by  my 
name?  I  can't  stand  it — I  can't  stand  it  any 
longer,  I  tell  you.  You've  got  to  speak." 

Astounded,  Waggoner  strove  to  answer. 
But,  because  he  was  startled  and  a  bit  ap 
prehensive  as  well,  his  throat  locked  down 
on  his  faulty  vocal  cords.  His  face  moved 
and  his  lips  twisted  convulsively,  but  no 
sound  issued  from  his  mouth. 

The  stranger,  glaring  into  Waggoner's 
face  with  those  two  goggling  eyes  of  his, 
which  were  all  eyeballs,  threw  up  both  arms 
at  full  length  and  gave  a  great  gagging 
outcry. 

"It's  come!"  he  shrieked;  "it's  come!  The 
silence  has  done  it  at  last.    It  deafens  me— 
I'm  deaf  I    I  can't  hear  you!    I  can't  hear 
you!" 

He  turned  and  ran  south — toward  the 
river — and  Waggoner,  recovering  himself, 
ran  after  him  full  bent.  It  was  a  strangely 
silent  race  these  two  ran  through  the  empty 
little  street,  for  in  the  half-melted  snow 
their  feet  made  no  sounds  at  all.  Waggoner, 
for  obvious  reasons,  could  utter  no  words; 
the  other  man  did  not. 
[60] 


The  Thunders  of  Silence 

A  scant  ten  feet  in  the  lead  the  fugitive 
reached  the  high  clay  bank  of  the  river. 
Without  a  backward  glance  at  his  pursuer, 
without  checking  his  speed,  he  went  off  and 
over  the  edge  and  down  out  of  sight  into  the 
darkness.  Even  at  the  end  of  the  twenty- 
foot  plunge  the  body  in  striking  made  al 
most  no  sound  at  all,  for,  as  Waggoner  after 
ward  figured,  it  must  have  struck  against  a 
mass  of  shore  ice,  then  instantly  to  slide  off, 
with  scarcely  a  splash,  into  the  roiled  yel 
low  waters  beyond. 

The  policeman  checked  his  own  speed 
barely  in  time  to  save  himself  from  follow 
ing  over  the  brink.  He  crouched  on  the 
verge  of  the  frozen  clay  bluff,  peering 
downward  into  the  blackness  and  the  quiet. 
He  saw  nothing  and  he  heard  nothing  ex 
cept  his  own  laboured  breathing. 

The  body  was  never  recovered.  But  at 
daylight  a  black  soft  hat  was  found  on  a 
half-rotted  ice  floe,  where  it  had  lodged 
close  up  against  the  bank.  A  name  was 
stamped  in  the  sweatband,  and  by  this  the 
identity  of  the  suicide  was  established  as 
that  of  Congressman  Jason  Mallard. 
[61] 


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